The entire procedure of research projects and writing assignments within the GSLS is digitalised in OSIRIS Case. As an examiner, you can approach the OSIRIS Case environment via OSIRIS Supervisor. There is a OSIRIS Case guide for examiners available with detailed instructions on this procedure.

You need to have a Solis-id and OSIRIS account to log in to OSIRIS. If you are employed by the UMCU, and you do not have a Solis-id and/or OSIRIS account yet, you can request one on the UMCU Solis account site.

FAQ

• Why can I not log in to OSIRIS Supervisor?

There are different reasons why you might not be able to log in to OSIRIS Supervisor:

Option	What you need to do
2FA not working	If the two-factor authentication (2FA) is not working properly. Please check the FAQ about 2FA. Still not working? Contact the UU IT service desk.
Solis-id not working	For UMCU employees: please contact solisbeheer@umcutrecht.nl. For UU employees: please contact UU IT service desk.
None of the above	Contact the administration office of Biomedical Sciences or Biosciences.

• Why can I not find the student in tasks?

There are different reasons why you cannot find a Case:

Option	What you need to do
Incorrect faculty	Check in the top right-hand corner in OSIRIS Supervisor if the correct faculty is selected.
You are not yet the active actor	The student still has an action that they need to undertake before the case is visible for you. Please remind the student that they need to click on ‘Ready’. They can do this by logging onto OSIRIS Student and selecting their case. If the student has any issues, they should check the OSIRIS Case guide for students or contact their adminstration office.
Email in junk folder	Please check your junk mail folder for the email from OSIRIS Case. If you still cannot find the email, please contact the administration office of Biomedical Sciences or Biosciences.
Final assessment not possible yet	First complete or approve the Interim assessment in OSIRIS Supervisor.

• What can I do when the host supervisor did not receive a link to access OSIRIS Case?

Send the contact details of the host supervisor to the administration office of Biomedical Sciences or Biosciences, including the email address, and a new link will be sent by them to the host supervisor.

• What should I do if I have not been in contact with the student for a long time?

Reach out to the research project coordinator or programme coordinator, so they can help.

• What is a ‘one-time password’?

The one-time password is generated by an authenticator app on your phone (e.g. Google authenticator) that is linked to your Solis-id. An explanation of the app can be found in this manual about two-factor-authentication.

For more frequently asked questions and answers – including those of students and the host supervisor – please visit the FAQ information on the Students’ Site.

Contact

If you have any problems, questions or suggestions, please contact the administration office of Biomedical Sciences or Biosciences.

Examiners of research projects receive reimbursement both when they supervise students in their own group and when they act as examiners for projects outside UU/UMCU. Host institutes or groups do not receive reimbursements. 

Reimbursement between faculties

At the UU and the UMCU agreements have been made and arrangements are in place at faculty level regarding the reimbursement of education and research projects or internship supervision. This means that examiners are reimbursed for all students within the GSLS regardless of their programme.

For questions about the reimbursement of supervision of students (also students from other faculties), please contact your own faculty: 

• Faculty of Medicine/UMC Utrecht: Martine Koppenhol 
• Faculty of Science: Pim Visscher 
• Veterinary Sciences Faculty: Education Office of your Faculty 

Recently, the Netherlands Federation of University Medical Centres launched the new collective labor agreement 2024-2025 for UMC employees. In this new agreement some conditions regarding internship allowance changed.

The internship allowance does not apply to students who follow their education (partly) at a University Medical Center (UMC) and who have to do a practical part within a UMC as part of this education.

Also, when a UMC department contributes a specific educational component for a course offered by another faculty, any practical part associated with that contribution does not qualify for an internship allowance.

This list (in Dutch) shows the programmes that are excluded from the internship allowance, including all GSLS Master’s programmes.

If you have any GSLS-related questions, please contact Shirrinka Goubitz, managing director GSLS. Are you a UMC Utrecht staff member and do you have UMC-related questions, please find more information on Connect (in Dutch; UMC login required).

Students with a disability can submit a request for additional provisions in OSIRIS Student. The academic counsellor (study advisor) will pick up the request and register the provision in OSIRIS. This is a UU-wide procedure (log in with Solis-id for more information). If you have any questions regarding this topic, please contact the academic counsellors.

There can be different reasons for things not going as planned: the progress of the student, unmatched expectations in the topic or previous experience, the capacity for supervision in the research group, the student’s motivation, communication issues, etc.

If in doubt who to contact, please do not hesitate to contact the research project coordinators. You can informally discuss your case with them, so they can advise you on which steps to take or who to contact. 

Student with personal problems

If you notice that your student is having any personal problems, but does not want to discuss this with you or other group members, or neither of them can help him/her, please send the student to their programme coordinator or academic counsellor for help. 

If the problem affects the students’ chances of finishing the project in time and/or with a passing grade, please also contact the research project coordinator. 

Disputes

If a (personal) dispute arises between the student and supervisor/examiner during a research project, please consider these steps: 

• Try to work out what caused the dispute and if you can resolve it, e.g. during the interim assessment meeting.  
• If this fails to resolve the dispute, you and/or the student can consult the programme coordinator or academic counsellor. A conversation with the academic counsellor is confidential. With the prior approval of the student or supervisor, the academic counsellor contacts the other party or other experts (for example the programme coordinator or institute director) for further mediation.  
• If the dispute is not resolved after consulting the programme coordinator or academic counsellor, the student (but not the supervisor) can submit an appeal to the Board of Examiners or the complaints coordinator in case of a dispute on personal grounds. The Board of Examiners will assess whether any procedural mistakes were made in handling the dispute. 
• Lastly, the student is entitled to submit a complaint with the university ‘Examinations Appeals Board’. This board is solely charged with assessing procedural mistakes.  

Premature termination of the project

No credits will be allocated to prematurely terminated research projects.

Termination by supervisor

A research project may be terminated by the supervisor. This can be the consequence if the student fails to honour agreements or does not remain in contact with the supervisor without giving substantiated reasons. The following guidelines should be used: 

• The student has failed to honour the agreements laid down in the application form (and the internship contract if applicable) and has been reprimanded clearly on several occasions in writing (letter or email) by the supervisor. 
• The student has been granted at least two opportunities to redeem him/herself by continuing the research project in the agreed manner. The student must have been notified in writing (letter or email). 
• The supervisor has stipulated a clear deadline in the second notification, warning the student that the research project will be terminated in the event of continued non-compliance. The student will be notified in writing if the research project is deemed to have been terminated. 
• The supervisor has sent copies of this correspondence to the programme coordinator and academic counsellor. 
• The student is entitled to submit an appeal against this decision with the Board of Examiners. 

Termination by student

The student is entitled to terminate the research project prematurely. Before deciding to terminate the project prematurely, the student is advised to contact the academic counsellor first to discuss the matter. The academic counsellor will also advise the student on further progress of the study programme. The student must notify the supervisor as soon as possible on the decision to terminate the research project, and inform the programme coordinator and research project coordinator as well.

Research project/business internship

Due to unforeseen circumstances the end date of the research project might change.

After the end date, the student has a maximum of 20 working days that they can take to wrap up any last project details without officially requesting an extension. If the delay is longer than that, the student must fill in the ‘rescheduling end date form’ in OSIRIS Case including the new end date, new planning for completion of the project and the motivation for this delay. The examiner and the research project coordinator will be prompted to review and approve the rescheduled end date via OSIRIS Case.

Valid reasons for postponing the end date are: more time spent on courses, extra time off due to personal circumstances, or if the examiner/supervisor needs more time due to personal circumstances. When student’s personal circumstances play a role, the student must discuss this with the academic counselor before submitting the rescheduling request. Gathering more data, better results, new insight within the research group, inclusion, DEC or METC, and other matters concerning day to day practice in research are not considered valid reasons.

Writing assignment

If your student exceeds these three months, they can find the instructions to ask for an extension of the end date. 

A student always writes his/her assignment under experienced supervision. Their assignment is often part of a larger framework or project. It is therefore not unlikely that part of their work will be published. This can even happen during the writing process. 

In this light, it is important to note that the copyright of any written text always belongs to the writer, unless agreed otherwise. That means the student holds the copyright of their writing assignment. 

When supervisors, or others, use part of the data or text in their publications, they need to follow the guidelines of scientific fairness and acknowledge the student’s contribution. This can be done in a number of different ways and depends on the amount of data/text used, the quality of the work and the student’s level of independence during the project. A student can be named in the acknowledgments, their report/writing assignment may be used as a literature reference, or they may be asked to be a co-author on an article.